Playing with Ice

Today was a great day. We did two of my tot school planned activities (body part matching and the ice sensory bin), then we did lots of pretend - pirates, lego farm, and Curious George. I decided to do a separate post for the ice play since it was so much fun.

Raccoon peering at his plastic turtle frozen in ice. I made the colored ice and frozen animals in a muffin tin since I couldn't find my ice cube tray. We talked about whether ice floats or sinks, and what is liquid and solid.

I put warm water in the yellow pitcher, which Raccoon then poured into the small blue pitcher to melt the ice around the turtle and "rescue" him. I also brought out some hot water (carefully supervised) so Raccoon could see water vapor. We watched how much faster the ice melted in the hot water, compared to the warm water, and the cold water.

Then Raccoon poured the water through the strainer and caught the turtle in his "net." He wanted to know why the strainer doesn't hold water.

After we "rescued" all of the frozen animals, Raccoon raided my cupboards for more pouring and scooping instruments. We had an important discussion about how to tell when something is full and what happens if we keep pouring more into it. I had a towel on the table and on the floor, but we both still got quite wet.

To end the activity, Raccoon decided more of his plastic animals needed an icy bath. We talked a little about which animals live in cold water (like the Artic), but he decided all of his friends could be cold water animals for today.